"If you've got mangroves around,"says Juan Walker,his bare feet squelching in the wet sand,his spear poised at his shoulder,"you'll never go hungry."
He scans the knee-deep water around us,searching the vast root system of the mangroves that reach for the floor like curious tentacles,hoping to spot some lunch,while I swat away mosquitoes and try not to look like I'm too concerned about crocodiles.
I grew up around mangroves. In coastal Queensland they're everywhere. But I've never thought to walk into them to look for food.
"Right there,"Juan says,pointing the tip of his spear. Through the murky water I can spot the flash of iridescence and the skittering claws of a mud crab. Juan stands still,points his spear,hovers it just above the water,and then jabs.
You might recognise Juan. Sharp-eyed foodies will have seen him on the only episode of the Netflix food showChef's Table:BBQto feature an Australian cook – in this case,Firedoor's Lennox Hastie. During the episode,Hastie journeys up to far-northern Queensland to discover the source of his seafood-heavy cuisine,going out to spear a mud crab and then cook it over hot coals on a deserted beach with an Indigenous guide.
For viewers hoping to recreate that experience,there's good news:this is the beach,this is the guide,and these are the mud crabs.
I ask Juan about that film shoot,when Hollywood came to Cooya Beach,the small coastal community near Port Douglas that he calls home. He smiles."Yeah,we speared a muddie that morning,but it wasn't looking too good for the cameras,so while they were doing some interviews I snuck back into the mangroves and got another one. Camera ready!"